“Do you usually see things?” Troy asked.
“No,” I admitted. “Very rarely and never that obvious. I told you, this place is fucking nuts.”
“I’m learning that,” he agreed. “I heard the ghost screaming at you all the way down on the beach.”
“I got annoyed and taunted him a bit,” I admitted. “But it’s generally not this dangerous.”
“Wait. Has anyone heard from Adam or Gavin?” Brea asked. “They haven’t talked on comms.”
“Adam? Gavin!” Troy’s voice was frantic as he practically yelled into the comm. A garbled white noise answer came back and that was all we needed to rush outside and over to the lighthouse. I half expected the door to be frozen but it opened right up. We took the stairs two at a time to get to them.
“Holy shit,” I gasped. “Let them go!”
A black fog surrounded both men, swirling violently so they couldn’t escape. Even as the giant light rotated it couldn’t cut through the darkness engulfing them.
“What the fuck do we do?” Troy asked us.
“Holy water,” Ethan suggested, pulling a vial out of his pocket. He uncorked it before splashing the fog with it. A loud hiss echoed in the circular room before the black smoke cleared.
Both men gasped like they hadn’t taken a solid breath in hours, falling to their knees as Brea and Troy dropped down in front of them, ensuring they were alright. After a few minutes of catching their breath they finally rasped out words.
“Look.” We followed their pointed finger to the far wall that had black dripping letters scrawled across it.
Leave while you still can.
ChapterTwenty
Brea
“So are we going to talk about that message?” Ben finally said as we all picked at our food the next day. The diner was buzzing around us but our mood was dismal.
“We have to find the source of their power. It’s the only choice we have,” I reminded them.
“We’ve been fucking saying that for how many weeks now?” Ethan practically yelled, earning more than a few glares from the other patrons.
“Don’t yell at her,” Lincoln said in an icy tone.
“Okay, bring it back, guys. We’re all on edge, and this isn’t us. Don’t let this negative energy start this fighting bullshit,” I chastised and got two weak apologies before it was quiet again.
“This is insane,” Gavin said. “I’m still processing the holy water moment to be honest. Like… are you secretly a priest?” That broke the tension as we burst out laughing at the thought of Ethan being a priest.
“Definitely not,” Ethan said. “But we do have a group of witches as friends who keep us supplied.”
“Wait… now I have more questions,” Adam said. “How do witches get holy water?”
“They have a priest on speed dial. Grandma Rose is pretty creative when she needs to be,” I answered. The entire coven was fantastic and their leader, Grandma Rose, was as eccentric as you’d expect and smarter than anyone I’d ever met. Astrid was who we usually talked to within the coven. Astrid had even started her own vlog not long after we met in person. They’d helped us with a very intense hunt before, one we wouldn’t have gotten out safely without.
“You guys lead very interesting lives,” Gavin said with a shake of his head. “I’ve never seen or experienced anything like last night.”
“Which is why I dug around our supplies and found you guys some protection,” Ben said, sliding over three necklaces with stones hanging on the end. “It’ll keep the more malicious spirits away but won’t dampen what we can do and see here. The rest of us need to get better about wearing ours.” We all shuffled at his pointed look.
“Thank you,” Troy said emphatically as he slid one around his neck before giving the others a stink eye until they did the same. “We appreciate it.”
“Do you think things will be just as crazy tonight?” Adam asked as he glanced out the window. “There’s a storm coming in.”
“I’m thinking we need a night off actually,” I said, shocking them all. “We’ve got more than enough evidence to make Haunted Histories happy. So we can take a few nights here and there. And with the storm, I don’t want to take chances. I’ll have scars from the last one.” I held up my hand and slid my new glove down to show the healing gash I got.
“Holy shit,” Ben gasped, holding up his phone. It was loud enough in the din that he got all of our attention. “I just got a message back from someone in the Navy. They said they got our information and have already located three families.”